Please excuse the over 24 hours late recap. Last night left me punishing my head against a wall. When I regained consciousness, I was in and out of the emergency room as I worked on my weekly Winging it in Motown article. I knew what everyone would write their game recap on, and I knew what I needed to write mine on. I just didn't want to do it, because it's not going to be the popular opinion.

Sometimes, we just know too much about hockey.

I was quite enthused about one James Howard, and his performance against the NHL team known as the Vancouver Canucks. Osgood put the team in a, seemingly, unspeakable hole early in the game and I nearly thought the game was over. Howard came in, and while he looked god awful doing it, he made the saves he needed to make, had no chance on the two goals he let up, but rallied as Detroit took the victory. Victory, such an underused word these days.

In my recap, I was elated. As someone who has watched Howard in the NCAA and AHL, a good two/three dozen times, I know what the guy is capable of. I was never too happy with Howard in his previous NHL stints. Sometimes he just didn't look ready, other times the team in front of him just didn't gel and sat too far back on their heels with a rookie goalie in net. It's a common mistake, but not something that should lead to a goalie going 1-7 in three year's worth of games. I wrote some things, that eerily came into play after the Edmonton game. Here's a sample:

• "I was amazed at the number of people writing him off, especially about him being a "bust draft pick." "
• Let's hope that confidence will help him iron out some of the rebound issues, and we can still count on him for reliable backup minutes.
• I think you've got to ride out Howard until he falls apart (he likely will, but don't write him off again, please).

I asked, passionately. This is a rookie goaltender. I don't care how old his is, he's going to hit some bumps. Those bumps are going to look like mountains when you've got a team in front of him that refuses to take care of the puck in their own end and refuses to play in the 1st period like they do in the 3rd.

But what do I see after yesterday's game? Essentially, Howard's head called for on a platter. I'm surprised there isn't a bounty on his head, to be quite honest.

I don't mean everyone, though. I had a good discussion with Chris at Motown Wings about it -- he was the only one I could bring myself to respond to. Because Chris gave reasons why he's unhappy with Howard. What I'm absolutely sick of hearing is how Howard "doesn't look like an NHL goaltender." What does that mean? What am I supposed to say to that? How many people saying this are actually goalie coaches? Because I'm sure not, so I admit that I don't know everything to look for. What I do know is that Jimmy Howard is a 25-year-old goaltender that Detroit has groomed, nitpicked, and observed much more frequently than I have for the past five seasons. If they did not believe that he was an NHL goaltender, he would not be in the NHL. Detroit is painfully picky with their prospects, if they did not believe he was capable of 25-30 games, there would be three goalies on Detroit, or Howard would be part of an ugly goaltending committee on a team like Toronto or the Islanders. Joey MacDonald much?

Yet, many fans are absolutely done with him. A guy who has spent a grand total of three weeks in the NHL. Sure, he had spotty time in a few seasons before that, but what kind of unfair pressure is it on a goalie to say "here, you get this one start right now and if you don't play well, you'll never see the NHL again." I thought Howard was good in most of those games, much better than a 1-6 record. But he sucked against St. Louis, and then again last night. But keep these things in mind (bullets are nice):

• Chris Osgood, for the second straight season, has not outperformed Howard by any stretch and has showed no signs of putting together a reasonable season.
  
• Chris Osgood let up two of the weakest goals in his career against Vancouver, and Howard held on to get the win.
• Jimmy Howard is a rookie goalie -- name me a rookie goalie that was flawless (or even close to it) as a rookie and I'll close down this blog right now. It's rocky road, look no further than superstars like Roberto Luongo, J-S Giguere, and Miikka Kiprusoff as guys who needed multiple NHL stops before they put that together. Am I putting Howard in that company? No. But I'm saying that teams who gave up early on goaltenders regretted it later.
• Jimmy Howard had a .936 save percentage in his relief effort against Buffalo, and his start against Colorado and Vancouver. As I told Chris at Motown, goalie stats mean nothing this early in the year (and look no further than Osgood's 08/09 regular season vs. his playoff to see what they mean overall), but you can't look at that and say he's been absolutely awful.
• Detroit has not had a rookie goalie since the Maracle/Hodson days. Joey MacDonald does not count, I think Detroit kept him on the roster accidentally.
• Howard actually saved a few pucks in the second and third period -- even overtime. And, gasp, he didn't just bend over and take it in the shootout like every other goalie we've had since the shootout era started.

That said, Howard sucked last night. Inexcusable. For some reason, he was sliding all over the ice and he even tripped over himself two or three times. Nerves? Bad ice? Untied skates? Lack of talent? All four? Who knows? He needs to be better. But the amount of people writing him off -- after he bailed out Osgood against Vancouver. He made a dozen huge saves, there's no way we wouldn't have had two points in that game if Babcock left Osgood in for another goal.

And as I predicted -- and a few people emphasize in the comments to that post, he was bound to fall apart. That's the way it goes for rookie goalies. Especially rookie goalies who were never consistently stellar in the AHL (though to be fair, he was not nearly as inconsistent in the AHL as some are making it out to be right now, just because it's easy to throw that out there and make him sound like a joke) and were not really drooled over in their draft season. But how can you see that one game and determine that's it for him? Under different circumstances, I might agree. but I watched the goals over and over again. And if you can all sit there and tell me that the defense did their job on all of those goals -- again, I will give up this blog right now and stop watching hockey. I feel insane sometimes. Why isn't anyone else talking about this. How 'bout this -- quick breakdown.

Here are the highlights. They're not long -- right now we're just focusing on the two and a half minutes which features Howard getting lit up for five goals. Watch them -- and please, let me know if you agree with me or not here.

Goal #1 -- Rafalski gets mauled behind the net and falls, a common defense mechanism for him. Cleary and Bertuzzi drift behind and chases the puck. In doing so, one of them (or some other neglectful defender on the ice) leaves an Oiler that I cannot identify wide open in front of the net. He gets a centering feed and puts it on net and Stuart steps into him, Howard makes a nice pad save and kicks the rebound over to the boards, where it should be. Filppula fires a weak clearing attempt up the boards that is stopped, and Cleary and Bertuzzi basically abandon the defensive zone. An Oiler takes the puck and centers it to JF Jacques in the middle of the ice. I believe this is where Howard's mistake was, as he set himself for a Jacques' shot. Jacques either let the puck go past him or just missed it (this is likely, he's not good) and Pouliot has a glorious chance that Howard gets a piece of. Jacques puts in the rebound and Rafalski does his best statue impression in front, not moving from the point of Pouliot's shot to the moment after Jacques scored. Howard was down and out and had no chance, but made himself look extra scrub like by spinning and sliding to basically the low slot. I think there were three faults here, it doesn't all fall on Howard. Filppula should have cleared, Rafalski should have done.. anything in front of the net, and Howard should have picked up that he had a 3-on-1 and not a 2-on-1.

Goal #2 -- Rafalski (whoa, common theme already!?!) gets absolutely walked by Hemsky inside the blueline. He thought he was a blitzing linebacker or something -- there is no need to charge at a dangerous stickhandler like Ales Hemsky. He totally flies past and basically vacates the zone. This creates an odd-man situation down low, but Hemsky (who suffers from superstar syndrome -- everything he does has to be highlight reel, even though he'd be much better if he kept it simple) loses it to Zetterberg, who loses it in the corner. Hemsky centers a pass to a defenseman in the high slot who unleashes a high shot that Howard makes a nice save on. The rebound goes airborne, and Penner outmuscles Rafalski (no way, really?!) and bats it in out of mid-air. I don't actually blame Rafalski for getting outmuslced because Penner is 6'4 and currently on fire. The only fault on this play in my eyes is Rafalski for getting blown past in the first place. I don't see how you can expect Howard to perfect corral that high shot when he had to move from his post to the top of the crease. The rebound wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible. It was up in the air and it was headed to the side of the ice, and not up the middle which is traditionally where "bad rebounds" live. Think about how absolutely perfect that timing had to be for Penner to get to the front of the net at just that moment and be able to bat the puck in, under the crossbar, before Howard could react. Also on the play, Ken Daniels says raises doubts about his own sexuality by saying, "and it's a hot guy who gets it!" as Penner scores.

Goal #3 -- Penalty kill, so we know right from here how fun this one is going to be. One of the biggest problems with the penalty kill is the fact that Detroit allows the cross ice pass way too easily. This time, Hemsky seams it across the ice for a one-timer, which is out of the 6'5 Jonathan Ericsson's reach so that should tell you that he had no idea where the cross ice man (aka "his" man) was standing. Ericsson did block the one-time attempt, and it went out front. Filppula engaged an Oiler for it and lost, and Howard tripped over his skates pushing to the middle of the ice (d'oh). The Oiler got it to Hemsky. Howard pushed over too far and left Hemsky a lot of net to shoot at, but still, Hemsky picked his corner. I do think this was Howard's worst goal of the game. Ericsson blew the cross-ice pass to start it all, but the defense did have the pass covered once Hemsky had the puck. Hemsky hesitated, and Howard pushed over too far -- I think tripping and falling may have thrown him off, because he had to get over a little quicker than he should have needed to. I think a little less of a push and a little more of a challenge would have been good, because Hemsky would have had less net to shoot at and he, theoretically, wouldn't have been able to pass it across and take advantage of Howard being aggressive. But aggressiveness typically goes hand in hand with confidence. Raise your hand right now if you think Howard was at all feeling confident before taking on this shot. Still, bad.

Goal #4 -- Bertuzzi fired an ill-advised pass to Rafalski (gasp!) who lost it to Penner (?) who springs Hemsky for a clear breakaway. Hemsky fakes, dekes to the backhand and puts it five hole. It wasn't the prettiest deke, but I let Howard off the hook. As I mentioned earlier, Hemsky suffers from superstar syndrome. He, like pretty much every roller hockey player I've ever played with, feels the need to make every breakaway look as effortless as possible. As a result, Hemsky has become quite adept at making goalies look stupid by keeping the puck on the ice and minimizing movements to keep goalies guessing. He's easily one of the best in the league at this. He's got one of the best career shootout percentages, and I can assure you that 80% of the shootout goals he's scored were in this same vein. He waits as long as he can to make a move, and then makes one quick move to open the goalie's five hole. He'll try to go five hole, and if he doesn't he'll try to put it off the post. Bertuzzi was the most at fault here, but I don't understand what Rafalski was doing either. Howard challenged, but Hemsky hit his five hole. Didn't look great, but there's not much he can do. It's Hemsky. Maybe on another player I'd look at it differently. But Hemsky made no mistake on the move, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

Goal #5 -- I'm not even going to get into this and try to sum up what happened one play at a time. Howard made a great point blank save on Penner to start off the play, and then things get messy as the Oilers have four or five whacks at a lose puck while Penner is down and out. All I want you to notice on this one is that Penner was all over Howard's legs, and the puck was loose for a couple of seconds. Tell me right now if Penner was Holmstrom, would he have been called for goaltender interference. And if the ref was Brad Watson, would the play have been allowed to continue that long? It was loose, so it's the right call, but this just seems like the kind of play Detroit gets screwed on a dozen times a season, Howard flailed and did all he could, but no Detroit defenseman was able to bail him out and Edmonton eventually scored. You can't really fault the defense, you can't really fault Howard. If you don't like the term "puck luck" look at a play like to this understand the difference between teams who catch breaks and teams who don't.

Is all of this fair? I need some feedback here. I spent about 45 minutes there watching each goal frame by frame about 15-20 times. To clarify, I'm not at all trying to argue that Howard played well. Because the goals were only part of it, Howard did a lot of random flailing and looked like an entirely different goalie than he did against Vancouver. But he got the job done, and I'd argue that we'd be hearing none of this if Howard only surrendered two or three.

Anyway, I'm not too happy with the Wings right now. I do think that the Wings are extremely lucky to get a point. I really want to leave the discussion for this open to Howard-only, but I do have a few other thoughts. First, Leino and Cleary have been invisible lately, and Leino was the guy I singled out for being the best in the Sweden games. Second, why did Datsyuk and Zetterberg shoot on Khabibulin. Especially against Datsyuk, Khabibulin is someone who has been miserable against Detroit over the years. He bites on dekes. Both of them took a shot from the slot like they were shooting on a goalie in warm ups. If they don't want to play in the shootout, they shouldn't be forced to play.

And the perfect icing on the cake is that Filppula broke his wrist and is out 6-8 weeks. Wooo! What now? Eurotwins are obviously broken up based on the fact that Helm, Abdelkader, Draper, and Williams are the team's only natural centers. Eaves and Helm were actually great against Edmonton so hopefully either one of them will get some ice time. So I'm not even going to play around with lines tonight, because they'll depress me.

What I do want to suggest is what happens if Detroit loses out the rest of this road trip? They'll be without Filppula still, and Franzen, -- and that's missing a lot of their high end offensive firepower. I almost wonder if Detroit would take a chance and just call up a guy like Cory Emmerton, Mattias Ritola, or even Dick Axelsson or Tomas Tatar, and just give them a few games on the top two lines. Why not? The need for high end skill is reaching desperate levels. These guys aren't NHL ready, which is very against how Detroit usually deals with young players. But Detroit doesn't usually have two of their top six forwards out during their worst season start in recent team history. Just saying, it might be time to think outside the box.

Rejoice! Jimmy Howard for President of Space!

But.. there are things to not rejoice about. Like Chris Osgood letting in two of the worst goals of his career. However, it was a satisfactory effort. Detroit battled back from a 2-0, scored more than one goal, and the defense wasn't really at fault for any of the four goals, nor was Jimmy Howard for his two.

Let's take a gander at the game, shall we?

Osgood v. Howard - I saw Howard taking a lot of heat since his last start, how he doesn't belong in the NHL, how he's been a complete bust since he was drafted, etc., and I really wanted to stand up for him, but I couldn't, because his play wasn't backing him up. Sitting at a career record of 1-7, what can you say? I'd look like a hypocrite, because for years I've defended Osgood for the exact opposite reason -- he wins games despite his talent deficiency.

But Howard is a rookie goalie, and the only rookie goalies that don't hit rough patches are the superfreaks like Steve Mason and Carey Price (even still, Mason looked human in the playoffs and Price is currently eating some bench in Montreal). The guy looked elated after the game, I really think there's still some hope in him. Will he ever be an elite starter? Probably not. But I was amazed at the number of people writing him off, especially about him being a "bust draft pick." I don't claim to always be right about prospects, because it would be boring if I was, but I had the luxury of watching him a handful of times his senior season at Maine and a few dozen times in Grand Rapids. I know what he's capable of. I was amazed at all these prospects experts writing him off after two games.

He was decent in St. Louis until the two five hole goals, which were terrible and cost Detroit the game. I think he took way too much heat for the Colorado loss. The Chris Stewart goal was weak but it caught him off guard -- happens to even the best of goalies. He looked really good other than that, and Detroit failed to score on 48 of 49 shots so I'm not sure where Howard comes in to take the fall on that one. I thought he looked great last night. Some strange rebounds at times, and some unnecessary flopping, but in his 22 shots he faced a good deal of difficult ones and had no chance on the two that got by. Let's hope that confidence will help him iron out some of the rebound issues, and we can still count on him for reliable backup minutes.

Osgood, on the other hand, needs to wake up. I was fuming after the first two goals (Exhibit A, Exhibit B) and this post would have been a lot angrier had Detroit not staged a comeback I am not seeing where people thought he's been great this season. The Chicago game, and the Washington game, and that's it. These weak goals are backbreakers, and there's no doubt in my mind Detroit would have lost if Babcock didn't yank him after the second goal.

What do you do going forward? I think you've got to ride out Howard until he falls apart (he likely will, but don't write him off again, please). Give Osgood another start on this road trip to keep his head in it, but if Howard plays all the time like his last two starts (or ideally, better), then he should play close to 35-40 games. There's no point in going through this with Osgood again when he's just not mentally switched on for the regular season. Like my second tweet is, let the young guys play and work out the kinks and give Ozzie a call around April.

Zetterberg - Datsyuk - Holmstrom: Finally! Datsyuk was just on tonight, you could smell he was scoring tonight even before his first goal. Zetterberg looked good, though I question his decision on his breakaway to just take a shot -- he love the deke, and Roberto Luongo tends to get really deep in his net when he's not confident. But the star of this line was Holmstrom tonight. He's looked great all season, but it's a waste if Datsyuk and Zetterberg aren't on. Holmstrom's goal was a perfect reminder of what that line can do together.

Bertuzzi - Filppula - Cleary - I'm looking for more from Dan Cleary, but I like how the other two work together. Bertuzzi is getting better and more confident in the offensive zone and there's just no way the points aren't going to come for him. How many times is a goalie going to get lucky on (from the Colorado game) a mini breakaway when he's got a whole net to shootout, or bailed out by a ref on the ensuing wrap around, or freakishly quick laterally like Luongo to save that tap in he had in the first. He's starting to look better with the puck. He just needs to get rid of it quicker in the offensive zone and get to the net, because he's looking dangerous in front. Filppula has been the Wings' most consistent player this season, but you just wonder when the points are coming for him. He set up Williams' game-winning goal, but he should have more points this season. I can't figure it out, but I'm working on it.

Jonathan Ericsson - He's taking a lot of heat this season and I think it's getting carried away. He's nowhere near the nightmare people are making him out to be. He hasn't been good this season, but people are going so far as to say he was bad defensively in the playoffs. Why didn't we hear all this.. you know, during the playoffs? He's never going to be a Lidstrom defensively but he can hold his own. Either way, he does need to be better, but I think it starts with the guy standing next to him. I know Babcock likes Ericsson, but having two guys who aren't great at defense to begin with on the same pairing, one a rookie, and one a midget, is just asking for trouble. He finally split up the top four, but I really think Ericsson needs to be with anyone else and you need to put Lebda with a guy like Stuart. Whatever.. we'll see.

I'm pleased with the effort, but I'm not going to be happy until they take it to the next level, because they can. I think we still have some guys we can get more out of. We just need some consistent goaltending and -- gasp -- we might even make the playoffs this season.

Taylor Hall is a 17-year-old scoring phenom from the OHL. Some say he would have gone #1 overall over John Tavares if they were the same draft year. He's got insane speed and just does nothing but score goals. Here are some highlights (fast forward to the :45 mark).

Cam Fowler came up through the US National Team and was all set for college before he "magically" decided to play for the Windsor Spitfires (alongside Taylor Hall) for this season. He is an insanely smooth skater for a defenseman and has a great head on him. For my money, he looks like the best defenseman to come out of the past handful of draft classes, including the very deep 2008.

Tyler Seguin is rising quickly right in Detroit's backyard, for the Plymouth Whalers. He has 30 points in 14 games playing on an injury-plagued team that lacks the depth of Windsor. Some say he's the true #1, and he draws all kinds of comparisons to Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic.

So.. which do you want to pick?

Just kidding. I'm not throwing in the towel yet. But I am worried that Detroit might trying to tank for Hall because he'd look great on Datsyuk's wing. It would set us up for the next decade. Anywho..

This was simply an emotionally draining game. After witnessing Michigan just shoot themselves in the foot about one thousand times, and Michigan State actually play a decent defensive game for once (I'm a Michigan fan all the way but that was such a terrible way for MSU to lose), I was pretty much counting on the Wings to brighten up my night.. A thought which made me spiral even deeper into depression, because you could pretty much tell all game they would find a way to lose.

I'm bringing it back. This seems to be the Detroit Patented Methodology for Losing Games. Offense, Defense, Goaltending: Pick Two. This season for Detroit sometimes it's been one or none of those things, but overall usually one thing stands out. Today I think they had goaltending and defense. Defense could have been better, and Rafalski's turnover on the first goal stands out. Howard was much better tonight, and made a fair amount of difficult saves. But the offense. Sure, they fired 48 shots, which is Wings hockey at it's finest. They just didn't get rebounds or make life that difficult for Anderson. I didn't really have sound for most of the game, so I had no idea that he made 48 saves. I would have guessed about 30-35. A busy night, but he didn't need to stand on his head.

That said, maaaaaaaan did the league miss out on Craig Anderson or what? I'm not even afraid to admit I had no idea he was this good, because I just don't watch enough Florida. I don't think he'll keep his .930+ save percentage all year because that's basically impossible. But he's definitely a top 15 goalie in this league and he's not likely to go somewhere any time soon. He's not exactly young, but he'll get used to being a starter and he'll be a good one for 5-7 years.

But to focus on the positive, pretty much every line had a few really good

And for the record, there's no way Todd Bertuzzi didn't score on his wraparound. Brad Watson blew it again, and I don't even care to copmlain about it

We play again.. ah, who cares, I don't even know. I'll watch it when they come on again, and I'll make a post very similar to this one. But for now, it's not the end of the world. It's not time to shake it up with a trade, but it's just time to go out and win. George nailed it completely with his post game summary. I don't even want to hear what Babcock has to say, who's coming in of the lineup and who's starting next. It just doesn't matter anymore, because right now it's not making a difference. Whoever we have in, we should be winning these games.

But.. Cam Fowler could be the next Nick Lidstrom. Is it a sign? Who knows?

As promised, I attended the Griffins home opener against Abbotsford. Very entertaining game -- Grand Rapids fell down early, but played a strong final two periods (Detroit could learn something). They finally took a 4-3 lead with 1:19 left off of a Kris Chucko 5-minute boarding major, and hit an empty net goal later.

I was really impressed overall, the team has a lot of skill. Abbotsford is bigger and grittier, so they gave the Griffins some trouble, but it was a great game. I'm gonna try to write a bit on everyone, but I was certainly watching some players more than others.

Here were the lines, though they changed early and often. I cannot place Mursak at all, I'm not sure where he started. I know Tatar was with Williams, but I can't remember who centered that line and I don't think Mursak did. But I know the other three are right. They rolled four lines, even on the powerplay:

Dick Axelsson | Michael Nylander | Jamie Tardif
Tomas Tatar | Jan Mursak | Jeremy Williams
Patrick Rissmiller | Kris Newbury | Mattias Ritola
Cory Emmerton | Evan McGrath | John Vigilante

Jakub Kindl | Andy Delmore
Sergei Kolosov | Doug Janik
Logan Pyett | Paul Crosty

Daniel Larsson

Here are the individual reports. It's long, so I don't expect anyone to read them all. I just know some people like to keep tabs on certain players, so I wanted to get as many preliminary impressions as I could.

Logan Pyett: He looked a lot more confident than last year, at least offensively. He joined the rush a lot and handled the puck a bit more, but he's still a little rough on the defensive end. He was on the ice for the first two goals against. He just looked really overmatched against some of the bigger Griffins.

Jakub Kindl: Good news and bad news: I didn't notice him. That means, he didn't make any terrible mistakes defensively, but he was invisible offensively. Part of that had to do with Michael Nylander playing the point over him on the top powerplay, but he definitely had some significant powerplay time. He's a great skater and he threw his weight around when he could. Looks good for a guy on a one-way contract for next year, could easily step into the 6th spot and work his way up.

Cory Emmerton: He was really invisible tonight, a little bit on the disappointing size, though he did start on what I would call the 4th line. Honestly, he had two big hits, and not much else, which isn't really his game, but it shows that he's gotten stronger. He should be making more of his powerplay time, because he's got the playmaking skills to be more than a grinder, which is what he was tonight. However, he and Tatar rotated in on the top line in the 3rd period, so he wasn't bad by any stretch.

Evan McGrath: Looked good in the first, but faded away like Emmerton after the first period. Scored the Griffins first goal on a nice snipe from the slot. Had a couple more good chances, but didn't see much powerplay time. He's definitely at his best with Francis Lemieux and Francis Pare, but both of them were out today. Lemieux was hurt, I thought I heard Pare was sick, but I'm not sure.

John Vigilante: He's not under contract with the Wings, but as I thought, he's an effective AHL player. He used to play for the Plymouth Whalers, so I'm really familiar with him (great hockey name, no?). He was a scorer in the OHL, but he's more of a grinder and energy guy now. He looked good, good addition for the Griffins.

Kris Newbury: Looked a lot more in his element than he did in the pre-season -- looked like a solid two-way player. Picked up the game winning goal on the powerplay on a mad scramble in front. Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he came up, but he's not really a Detroit-style player. Dished out some big hits, but was the victim of Abbotsford's (that feels so strange to write) two biggest. Was the first star for the winning goal, but he didn't really deliver a knock out performance.

Dick Axelsson: I'm not sure what happened. I thought he looked awesome. Scary good. Opened the game with Nylander and Tardif and that was the only line that remained unchanged through two period. But I'm not sure if he took a shift in the third. Not sure if he got hurt (had a knee injury that kept him out of the pre-season) or Curt Fraser just kept him on the bench. But he was involved in the play, had four shots (three solid chances), really not afraid to get his nose dirty (and I saw the mean streak that got him 157 PIM in 28 games during his draft year). He can keep it under control, but he really gets in people's faces and doesn't take kindly to little things like people leaning on him before faceoffs. He's a guy that I've always ranked higher among prospects than the likes of HF and RWC, and today I feel like he re-assured my belief in him. I really like him as a player on the second or third line that can play right up on the edge of aggressive without racking up too many PIM (he's been better since moving up to higher levels in Sweden) but with the ability to put up some points. Fun player to watch, and he's clearly already won over big minutes as a rookie (provided he was actually hurt and not benched -- no idea why he would be benched though).

Jan Mursak: Like Logan Pyett, he looks like a completely different player than last year. He was always fast, with good hands, but his slow start last year left him between the 4th line and press box. He put on some much needed strength (still needs a little more) and with the Griffins new lineup, he's got offensive players no matter what line he ends up on. I feel like he didn't get a ton of ice time, but he still did well and saw pretty consistent powerplay minutes. He looks like he wants the puck this year, and he has the ability to do something with it. He was rewarded with an empty net goal, equaling his entire goal total from last season with two on the season.

Pat Rissmiller: I expected more from a big guy who's seen a lot of NHL time. If you don't know the story, unlike Michael Nylander who is on a tryout, Rissmiller was acquired by the Griffins (no idea what they gave up, if anything. The press release makes it sound like he was just directly loaned from the Rangers just because they don't want him anymore.) from the Hartford Wolf*Pack, though he remains property of the New York Rangers. But for 182 NHL games, most in the past few years, he didn't stand out. He spent last season in Hartford and had 54 points in 64 games, so he can score. Maybe it was his line and just the fact that, as someone acquired in the past two days, he wasn't going to play a huge role, but he didn't meet my expectations. But he is a 6'4 forward who can skate well, so he adds an element the Griffins don't have if the Rangers keep him there all season. Looked good, but needs to make more of an impact.

Mattias Ritola: I tried to look hard at him because I seem to notice him more in pre-season Detroit games than Grand Rapids games. I noticed him a lot more today, though. Saw flashes of the high skill level he was billed with, but his play along the boards as a grinder has come along. He didn't play a ton, but I certainly noticed when he was out there. His goal was great, a perfect display of his patience and skill level as well as his willingness to pay the price to make a play. Outwaited a defenseman and the Heat goalie as he cut across the slot and put a backhander into an open net. Good stuff from Ritola -- probably the top candidate for a callup if Detroit needs it.

Jeremy Williams: Unlike Newbury, he actually looked pretty average in the AHL. He wasn't promised as much else, but he pretty much only is a threat in the offensive zone. He took the only penalty I'd classify as "stupid" with a boarding call. Good around the net though, and useful on the powerplay. Important for the Griffins, though a 90-point Darren Haydar replacement he is not.

Andy Delmore: Actually looked pretty solid, even as I cringed to see him paired with Kindl to open the game. The AHL fits his style of play well, and as of right now, I don't see much that separates he and the struggling Lebda/Meech besides Delmore's huge shot against both of their skating abilities. He never got burned. Lebda was pretty solid the past two games, so we'll see where he goes. But after Detroit dropped the first two games, I saw a few fans call for Delmore to be recalled. I wouldn't be opposed to that if neither Lebda or Meech can get it going. His shot demands respect. However, he was the victim on the dirty boarding call that gave Grand Rapids the 5-minute powerplay which resulted in the GWG. He was down for a while, and his shoulder didn't look quite right as he skated off. As there were only 4 minutes left, he didn't come back, but I would be shocked to see him play tomorrow.

Paul Crosty: Vigilante and Crosty are the only Griffins-contracted players who suited up tonight. Crosty was billed as the heavyweight fighter, and he lived up to that. He had a nice scrap with Abbotsfords' J.D. Watt where he landed about a dozen punches to Watt's pair. He barely played though, as he looks really rough around the puck. He's listed as a forward for Grand Rapids, but he's played defense all his life. Grand Rapids put him on the point tonight instead of Travis Ehrhardt or Sebastien Piche, who had been rotating. Crosty has an element that nobody else does with the way he can throw, but it does limit Grand Rapids to five defensemen and puts a lot of pressure on a #5 like Logan Pyett who hasn't completely adjusted to the AHL yet. To be certain, he's a perfect AHL goon.

Jamie Tardif: He's been strange for me to watch develop. I saw him multiple times while he was in the OHL. He really blossomed into a strong, scoring power forward. Then he signed in Grand Rapids and did nothing but fight when I saw him two years ago. Then Detroit signed him, and he was a 4th liner and/or hurt every time I saw him last year. This year, he's the captain and played the whole game on the top line. Looks like an entirely different player. He's gritty and he'll never cheat you on effort. I'm not sure what kind of numbers he can put up though, and if he's better off on the 3rd or 4th line with big PK minutes, as he didn't do much on the powerplay.

Tomas Tatar: Yep, he's staying in Grand Rapids as far as I'm concerned. Not on the scoresheet, but Tatar was fantastic tonight. I was looking specifically for him, but it wasn't hard to find him as he was constantly around the puck. Not a big guy, but not afraid. He showed a lot of energy tonight and he's a much quicker skater than he looks on TV. When Axelsson was hurt/benched/MIA, Tatar took a lot of the top line minutes and had a few great shifts on the cycle with Nylander. He had a glorious breakaway chance that he just fired high after getting a pass from Doug Janik while stepping out of the box. Three shots total, and at least two more that I saw which were just fired over the crossbar. He loves to score. Of all the Griffins right now, I'd put him as the safest bet to be an NHLer some day. I'd target about two to three years as he adds strength. I don't see much of a point for him in Plymouth, other than adding a hilarious amount of depth.

Sergei Kolosov: He looks like a much better skater than when I saw him last year, but he didn't play a whole lot. Most of that is probably due to Grand Rapids having 12 powerplays, and while Kolosov is solid, he's not a guy I'd trust on the point of a powerplay (pairings were Nylander/Delmore, and then Kindl/Pyett with Janik rotating in). I do trust him though, and I'm going to keep a closer eye on him this season. The fewer mistakes he makes, the more likely he is to become a Red Wing down the line, and he didn't make any glaring ones tonight.

Doug Janik: He was on the ice a lot, but I didn't see him do much. As I always say, that's good for a defensive defenseman, as I noticed him in the pre-season making a lot of mistakes and falling more than Filppula. He's a great addition to Grand Rapids, in my opinion.

Michael Nylander: An interesting performance. It's hard to describe what a 600+ NHL points, 900+ NHL games player looks like against AHL competition. One one hand, he most assuredly had the puck on his stick more than anyone else in this game. So patient and composed, and made so many of the right plays. On the other hand, his legs aren't all back yet and he was just average speed-wise. But he made a lot of nice moves from early on in the game which gave him a lot of room, as no defenders wanted to face him and get burned. However, I had no idea that he had three points and got named second star. This would be an example of a game where you see the boxscore and assume he dominated, but the game told a different story. He was great, his skill level is obvious and he was very controlling of the play, but not exactly dominant. He had one good assist, then a "you score, I don't want to" pass to Mursak on the empty netter, and a second assist on a goal that Ritola really created on his own. So "three assists" is not really how I'd describe his game, if you see what I'm saying. Still, he's basically auditioning for European teams to prove that he's in shape and can still play. And I think he accomplished that. He has no business in the AHL.

Daniel Larsson: Not a great start, but a strong finish. Coming into the game with a 6.56 GAA and .795 save percentage, I can't imagine his confidence was that high. The first two goals were on the opposite end of the ice as I was, so I can't say for certain if they were weak. The first was off more of a scramble and I could not see at all where he was in the net. The second I felt he could have had, but I'd like to see it again. After that, he was shaky. He fought a few rebounds and had a really easy shot slide past him and basically sit on the goal line before a defender cleared it away. But he was just perfect in the third period. He faced some difficult shots and his confidence came back -- no strange rebounds. The game wouldn't have been 3-3 going into the 3rd if he played this way the whole game, but he definitely made a few saves that allowed the Griffins to take the eventual lead.

Funny note to the game. For some reason, after Mursak scored the empty netter, fans started throwing the free giveaway mugs onto the ice. There were glow-in-the-dark Griffins mugs (you can kind of make out the glowing effect they had on the darkness here, but I didn't get a shot of the crowd with them) for the first 5,000 fans, which I was not one of. Mursak scored with 4 seconds left, and for some reason as soon as he scored, one of the mugs hit the ice.. and then another.. and then another.. and then about a dozen more, and before you knew it about a hundred mugs were pouring onto the ice.

It was funny, but a little dangerous. Dollar Beer Night doesn't leave people with the most accurate of throwing arms, a few mugs landed pretty close to my section and the way they splashed led me to believe there was still beer in most of them. But I snapped a pretty good picture of the Griffins helping the ice crew clean up all these mugs (though for some reason they're not too visible.. maybe I snapped the picture later than I thought I did).

The best part though, which my cell phone camera (I can't figure out how to zoom in, if you couldn't tell from my pictures) didn't capture, was that most of the mugs shattered when they hit the ice, so the "glowing" lime green material inside the mugs seeped out, and there was just a bunch of highlighter-colored stains on the ice as they finished the last 4.8 seconds. I have no idea how that stuff will come out, I think it would add some serious class to the team if they just left those stains on for the whole season.. but I think the Zambonis will shave it off, unfortunately.

Anyway.. hope you got what you were looking for out of this recap. The Griffins play at home again tomorrow versus the Toronto Marlies, but I think I'll skip that to watch college football and the Wings/Avs. But I might have to hit up Van Andel again on Sunday to catch Abbotsford again. I'll make that decision tomorrow, and will ideally have another (but likely shorter) recap on that Sunday night. Stay tuned.

(If you don't know why the site looks like this, see the post directly below this.)

Not a great way to open up the new site, but I work with what I'm given.

And what I was given tonight was not a whole lot. The game just felt dangerous the entire night. Detroit finally had a few really good shifts, especially in the second period, when they could control the play. They nearly looked like a team who played in the Stanley Cup Finals over the summer, who was playing against a team that almost didn't have a home, has a bunch of young players rushed into big roles, and has Bobby Lang. Then they stopped trying. As impressed as I've been with Phoenix this season, they have no business outshooting Detroit.

As it's quite late, and writing about how bad the Wings are sickens me, I'll wrap it up with a good and bad review.

GOOD

- The made up stat I kinda keep in my head of the important saves Chris Osgood makes went way up tonight, as it was dangerously low going in.

- Valtteri Filppula at both ends of the ice.

- Umm, Holmstrom's scoring? People seemed to think that wouldn't happen in the offseason, but it's happening.

- Brett Lebda now has more goals than Pavel Datsyuk on the year. Wait, that's a bad thing.

BAD

- Every line was inconsistent (Leino/Filppula/Williams almost wasn't, but they didn't exactly win the game for us).

- Chris Osgood played a good practical joke where he dressed up as Osgood circa '98 and let in a terribly weak goal. I see George Malik's point in that the shot was tipped, but it was also off the stick of Adrian Aucoin traveling at the speed of Bertuzzi. Inexcusable, and Osgood's body language said it right away.

- Adrian Aucoin scored two goals.

- Team defense and playing as if there's something on the line.

- The first and third period.

- The Detroit Red Wings.

That said, I'm not too happy with the call on the tying goal. As I've noted on several occasions, Detroit has a knack for just getting royally screwed over on things that happen near the net. It's no secret that one of today's refs was Brad Watson, the referee who almost handed the entire series to Anaheim because he cannot distinguish basic shapes and colors. I know Lebda put the puck in the net ultimately, but two Coyotes shoved the entire pile consisting of the puck, Lebda, and Osgood right into the net. How many times have you seen Holmstrom put his stick on a goalie's pad and get something called back?

The whole thing just reminded me of this goal by Dan Cleary in Game 7 against Anaheim. I distinctly remember Ron MacLean, who I enjoy as an analyst, but he got on my nerves a bit with what I believed to be an anti-Wing agenda in the playoffs. He held the rulebook up to the camera for this goal, which had something to do with the goalie not being able to be pushed into the net, and he said, and I'm paraphrasing, roughly, but it's pretty close because I hated the quote so much it burned itself into my memory, "If the referee was brave, this goal would have been waved off and this wonderful series would have been sent to overtime." Ha. Watch that goal. Dan Cleary putting his stick towards a loose puck in between Jonas Hiller's legs, and then Hiller falling on it after the puck was in, is apparently goaltender interference, if you go by the book. But somehow, a rugby scrum in front of the net is not. Interesting league.

All that said, better Brett Lebda than Bobby Lang, I guess. I'm headed out to the Griffins' home opener tomorrow, where I will be delighted to see Tomas Tatar, Michael Nylander, and Patrick Rissmiller, who the Griffins just acquired from Hartford (he's under contract to the Rangers) and not the same old Wings who keep trying to win games with as little effort as possible. I'll have a recap of that. The Wings are back in action Saturday in Colorado.

Well, hello there! As you might be able to notice, this is very different.

Sure enough, I've moved again. Babcock's Death Stare has been asked by the fine people at Bloguin to join the network. They've hooked us up with these sweet new digs, designed and set up for free. Take a while and explore, it's a change, but I think you'll all enjoy this.

Why did I move? I feel like this is a great opportunity. The Bloguin network is currently overhauling their hockey section and quality blogs are being pumped in en masse. This will hopefully get BDS a little more traffic -- if you're unaware, they host Pensblog, the largest team-specific blog out there. Most of the new traffic will most likely be Penguins fans trashing Detroit, but that's fine, because with the way this season has started, they'll fit right in with Wings fans trashing Detroit. I expect this to be a happy union.

On a personal level, I'm very honored to make this move. For years, I wanted to start up a Red Wings blog, but I had no idea what I was doing. I would get bored, post like three times, and then let it die. I think I had two blogs before I started WTF Holland. WTFH was.. not very successful. But there were at least two or three regular viewers, and that was enough to inspire me to get going. This summer, for whatever reason, people decided they cared what I had to say. I made the move to Babcock's Death Stare, and enjoyed a summer of solid traffic and excellent feedback. And that's encouraging, I'm glad I've found people can tolerate me while I ramble on about hockey, because my family and friends have long since given up.

And no worries. Aside from the new look and new address -- nothing has changed. I'd like to thank Derek, Dave, and Ben at Bloguin for making this transition very smooth, and for assuring me that I will not have to change the way I blog. I'll still write about what I want, when I want, and how I want, and that's very important to me. Everything's the same. I'm just hoping a move like this would help to continue building on the solid base of regulars we already see around here to continue to grow and generate solid Wings discussion. Also, as much as I loved WordPress, I can already tell that the platform that Bloguin runs up is going to allow me to do some pretty cool things. I intend fully to take advantage of them.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments, or just drop them in the comments box.

If not, welcome. Sit back and enjoy, this place should be up and kicking pretty soon.

- Kyle